“Think of the kids in Ga-Mashashane, think of the kids in Nqutu, think of the kids in the Eastern Cape that are studying in schools that do not have classrooms, think of the kids here in the Western Cape, where 2407 teachers were fired this year.”
– Azola Petane, Equal Education Post-School Youth Member,
at the People Against Budget Cuts demonstration outside Parliament on 12 November 2025
Treasury had an opportunity to use this year’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement to think of the kids and reverse some of the austerity measures that have devastated public services and undermined constitutional obligations in recent years. Instead, the Minister announced an intention to maintain a low expenditure outlook by anchoring a new, lower inflation target of 3 percent. His speech failed to acknowledge the youth.
What does lower inflation targeting mean for public spending?
We all welcome efforts to reduce the cost-of-living, especially in the context of exorbitant rises in the prices of food, water, electricity, and housing that have pushed poor and working-class communities into greater levels of precarity and desperation. But lowering the inflation target in the context of a severely underfunded public sector will not achieve this outcome.
A low inflation target adds pressure on the South African Reserve Bank to keep interest rates high in an effort to curb demand. If the inflation range were kept between 3 and 6 percent, then the Reserve Bank would have scope to reduce interest rates significantly in the short term, and the government would be able to attract more revenue. This would free up space for the government to spend on urgently needed social investments.
Massive shortfalls in Basic Education
As things stand, schools are desperately underfunded. In KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, and the Northern Cape, no-fee schools are subsidised far below the prescribed per-learner threshold of R1754. This means that they do not have enough money to pay for basic things like water and electricity, cleaning supplies, worksheets, paper, and textbooks. Schools, principals and teachers are going into arrears with loan sharks and extortion racketeers just to keep the lights on, while austerity dims our future.
“The state of infrastructure is poor. The government doesn’t meet the needs of the schools. For example, when we go to school, we don’t have any stationery. We end up sharing textbooks in groups of three. We find that one person stays far away from school, while another stays in a different location. Therefore, when we share, for example, with my best friend who lives far away, I don’t have the same opportunity to learn as everyone else. I’m left behind. The infrastructure here at home is very poor.”
– Sthembiso, Equaliser from Langazela High School in KwaZulu-Natal
The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) and rural and scholar transport continue to be underfunded and suffer from erratic implementation, creating uncertainty for learners who rely on these provisions, especially in rural provinces.
Grade R continues to be underfunded, leaving thousands of learners without guaranteed passage to what is an immediately realisable right under the constitution.
Budget documents revealed that education departments lost 6,362 warm bodies in the system between the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years. Across provinces, learners in no-fee schools lament the shortage of teachers,
In this context, the Department of Basic Education’s failure to deliver the mere 30 additional classrooms it promised, as well as the Limpopo Department of Education’s 2024/25 R934 million in underspending, should be labelled criminal.
Despite the bleak overall picture, we do welcome some mid-year adjustments. Consolidated spending on basic education has been adjusted to increase by R1.45 billion this year. Of this, a net R443 million will be allocated to repair and rebuild schools that have been adversely affected by natural disasters.
Unfortunately, this remains just a drop in the ocean of funding required to repair and rebuild schools that have been adversely affected by artificial disasters, like the Bantu education system, neoliberal austerity, state neglect, and mismanagement.
Post-School Education and Training (PSET)
While we acknowledge that government expenditure on post-school education and training (PSET) has been steadily increasing over the past few years and is projected to increase at an average annual expenditure growth rate of 4.6% for the current financial year and over the medium-term (the 2026/27, 2027/28 and 2028/29 financial years), the reality is that in real terms, this growth is not sufficient to meet growing demands for additional resources. Funding allocations have lagged behind the increasing enrollment pressure and escalating costs of higher education, resulting in the continued, unjust exclusion of poor but deserving youth from accessing quality higher education and training opportunities.
National Treasury has reported that by the end of September this year, the target for the number of eligible university students (initially set at 426 296 students) obtaining financial aid from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was exceeded as more students than anticipated were deemed eligible (566 563 students), resulting in a R13 billion shortfall for the 2025/26 financial year. Although this budget shortfall is expected to be covered by NSFAS, we share the growing concerns of students regarding the reliability and sustainability of NSFAS. The total NSFAS budget for the current academic year is R48.7 billion. It is expected to increase to R51 billion next year and R53.4 billion in 2027. This is not sufficient to meet the growing demand for access to higher education.
In June this year, the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET), in a presentation to the portfolio committee on higher education and training, cited that no additional budget for expansion of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) sector had been allocated since 2013 and that more resources are required to significantly expand the Community Education and Training (CET) sector. The total budget allocation of TVET for the current financial year is R14 billion, and is only expected to increase to R14,7 billion in the 2026/27 financial year.
National Treasury has indicated in the 2025 MTBPS that, due to a lower demand for existing programme offerings than anticipated, the targets for the number of enrolments at TVET (520,000 student enrollments) and CET colleges (162,750 student enrollments) are unlikely to be achieved by the end of the financial year. We highlight that the historical and continued underfunding of these key Higher Education Institutions impedes their ability to diversify and expand their programme offerings, to position them as institutions of first choice for young people.
Funding also continues to be inadequate to address the funding of students in the ‘missing middle’ income bracket (students from households with a total income of more than R350 000 but less than R600 000 per annum) and postgraduate students who cannot source funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF). In 2024, the government committed to allocating R3.8 billion, over three years, to support the Comprehensive Student Funding Model (CSFM), a loan scheme, which was expected, at the time, to cover just less than half (47%) of the total estimated missing middle students in the system. We call on the department to closely monitor and ensure the efficient and full implementation of the first R1 billion allocated toward the CSFM this financial year.
We note the existing vacancies reported in the 2025 MTBPS across all six programmes of the DHET. We urge the department to prioritise the filling of these vacancies to improve the overall quality of the living and learning experience of students at our different higher education institutions.
This year’s windfall revenues could have been used to fill urgent, lifesaving gaps in the budget and to make critical investments into the future of this country. Instead, Treasury is committing itself to a riskier strategy of a lower inflation target. In the context of SARB’s narrow monetary policy mandate and extreme global volatility, we can expect supply shocks to be met with extortionate interest-rate increases that will place even greater pressures on public expenditure.
We caution parliament against accepting the Treasury’s tabled inflation target as divine ordinance. Current expenditure levels are too low to meet constitutional obligations, let alone provide hope to the young generation of a future free from the violence of poverty, inequality and unemployment that have become the norm. The urgent task is to pass a people’s budget. One that owes due consideration to the plight of youth in this country.
For Comment:
Ayanda Sishi-Wigzell
Communications Manager
ayanda@equaleducation.org.za
+27 76 879 3017